Xiaomi sells over 1 mln smartphones in July-Sept qtr

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has sold over a million units in the quarter ended September, nearly 45% higher sequentially, a first of a kind achievement for the company which entered India in August last year.Gulveen Aulakh | ET Bureau | November 05, 2015, 22:45 IST

Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi Inc said it could sell more models in Indian stores while pursuing its primarily online-only strategy. Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi has sold over a million units in the quarter ended September, nearly 45% higher sequentially, a first of a kind achievement for the company which entered India in August last year.

"We've had our best ever quarter during August to September this year with more than 1 million units," Manu Jain, head of Xiaomi's India operations, told ET.

He said that Xiaomi's sequential growth in the third quarter was nearly the same as that of the second quarter ended June over the first quarter ended March 2015. Xiaomi had already clocked 3 million unit sales as of August this year, when it announced the beginning of local manufacturing in partnership with Foxconn.

The million-strong sales are in sharp contrast to data shared by analysts at Counterpoint Research, which on Tuesday said that the Beijing-headquartered company underwent its first sequential decline in India as shipments dropped "by almost 46% due to fierce competition from Lenovo and Micromax's Yu brands, especially in the higher volume sub-$100 segment".

The Hong Kong-based research firm had said that Micromax's Yu brand alone is now selling more smartphones than Xiaomi online, underlining the immense challenge for the Chinese company of scaling up in India.

Jain said that the company was doing exceedingly well in the online space and added that its Mi.com site which sells Xiaomi smartphones and other accessories to consumers directly was attracting customers in millions.

"Within five months of enabling sales through Mi.com, we've achieved 10 million visits in October," Jain said. Xiaomi had started its own ecommerce portal in June, and followed it up with the Mi Store app.

Emulating ecommerce platforms in India, Xiaomi also started Diwali sale from November 3 till November 5, which saw over 1 million unique visitors to the Mi.com site on day one. "We have been able to achieve these figures without doing any marketing in print or TV media, but only through social media and word of mouth," Jain added.

Besides giving discounts on Mi4, Mi4i, Redmi 2 Prime and Mi Pad, Xiaomi is also offering goodies such as Mi Band, earphones and several other accessories for Re 1, on certain conditions. Xiaomi will also offer a Mi TV each of the three days of sale to lucky winners who shop on the Mi Store app, but Jain did not say when the Mi TV will be officially launched in India. "We do have plans to bring more and more products," he said.